Black Fortunes on The Rock Newman Show

this evening on the rock Newman show Shamari wills discusses his new book black fortunes the story of the first sixth african-americans who escaped slavery and became millionaires from the largest landowner in Tennessee to the woman who funded John Brown's raid learn about these little-known stories of early black success that's coming up right now on the rock Newman show [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the rock Newman show from the campus of historic Howard University located in the nation's capital I'm rock Newman and it is my desire to inspire you with personal stories of extraordinary achievement currently there are approximately 35,000 African American millionaires in the United States that's only about 1/10 of one tenth of the population as hard as it is to make seven figures today imagine how hard it was right after slavery here's a quote from the book the black elite in their first decades of existence survived assassination attempts lynchings frivolous lawsuits and criminal cases all meant to destroy or D legitimize their wealth joining me now is author Shamari wills welcome all right thanks for having me Rach I was just telling you this is a bucket list item for me as a DC native you're too kind you mentioned you're a DC native you went to that other school on Morehouse you went there for undergrad you got your graduate degree a master's in journalism from Columbia University yes sir yes sir okay and I want to jump right into this man you've done something sounds like I almost say it too often that we start this show by saying that we hope to inspire our audience with personal stories of extraordinary achievement and I think we we try to honor that so we've had some great folks here and some people who talked about great folks and have indeed been inspiration but you've written a book about the impossible about folks who are were either slays a one step removed from slavery who against all imagined Ahn's became millionaires so thank you for the work number one you part of your inspiration was your was a gentleman by the name of John Mott drew tell us why he was who he was of why he was your inspiration well thanks first of all for the kind words about the book Rock I really appreciate that so John Mott Drew was my great great uncle my great great grandfather's brother he was one of the first black millionaires in the Philadelphia area he started the one of the first black bust lines in the United States now and he wasn't asleep at his day it was his dad was a slave my great great great grandfather Napoleon Bonaparte drew he was a former slave from Powhatan Virginia who after he got free right after the Civil War became the first black man to own property and so Napoleon at some point let stop because you know you've lived with this book now for a long long time so you just rattle this stuff all rolls off your tongue but John Mott drew first african-american first black man in the United States to own property not John my true oh yes Napoleon but his dad's like the first black man to own property and Powhatan Virginia okay you know not too far from here okay so he eventually sold that land and gave the money to his sons one of whom was my grandfather Simon the other was his brother John Mott true they both went into business and were successful but John was uber successful he started a bus line to help blacks in the Philadelphia suburbs right I get to work in Philadelphia and he eventually sold that to what became septa the main transportation hub in the Philadelphia area he took some of his money he took the proceeds he put that in the stock market and you know in the 1920s as the stock market was going up up up yes he pulled it out right in 1929 Yeah right before the big crash when the stock market was you know at its peak and walked away with almost a million yeah so he invested invested invested and and literally a new we're eating right it was a month or so a couple of months or so before the stock market crashed yeah I mean it wasn't wasn't that close it was about you know it's about five or six months before it crashed you know cut it too close yeah but you know he knew something was coming let me just ask them I don't know if you know this but was there did you find out anything come on one of the difficulties that you had is not all not not is it's not a lot of written records but did you hear anything about what it was that made him make that incredible move because that's what that was it was it was beyond incredible in terms of the timing yes I think the thing that was always said about him and his brother and his father they just had an innate sense of self confidence they just were born with self confidence I mean just their you know their names you know Napoleon you know calling himself napoleon bonaparte drew you know these were folks who just innately had a sense of that they could achieve something great and so you know they took these risks that weren't you know certainly weren't normal yeah I'm were able to really benefit from it okay and coming back to John Mott drew you're your great-great uncle so tell us about that inspiration how he inspired you what about him and what he did inspired you to sort of seek this kind of knowledge well so the awareness was always there I always knew about John Montreux what he was famous for in my family is owning a baseball team he owned the Philadelphia local baseball team the Hilldale daisies yeah so you know that was always bandied about in the family as a story my mother loved to tell I'm descended from him through my mother so we always knew about him that he did these great things but the actual dollar amounts that was never really talked about how much money had everybody knew he had money as I started working on this book you know you know specifically my aunt different people from my family got in contact with me and said you got to write about uncle Johnny you know he's a millionaire you know and the light bulb went off you know and so that just sort of became an extra source of fuel to you know to write the book and get it finished and so talk to us a little bit about what your struggles were in terms of not necessarily there being an abundance of Records so you know there's a disparity in terms of just vital records between African Americans and white Americans specifically because you know in that for the antebellum period black folks were not tracked in the census a lot of times births marriages deaths were not recorded so you know once you get further back then about 1865 the records sort of go away the other thing is that because these folks are hidden a lot of times and they're not valued in the same way you know a lot of our white American heroes are valued the records are not necessarily prioritized you know to be kept neatly in an archive where they're really accessible so I had to go all over the place looking for this stuff so you know just that those were the main two challenges you don't get any information for the book okay so let's start talking about some of the folks and let's start first with Annie Malone tell us all about any Malone so Annie Malone a lot of people would argue that she is the mother of black hair we all know about madam CJ Walker yes but before madam CJ Walker there was a woman named Annie Malone you know she was an orphan born just after the end of the Civil War to a to two slaves one of whom was a Civil War veteran and she grew up in Illinois and became really interested in hair you know styling hair braiding hair and she noticed there's a girl in Illinois right after you know the slave period the black women were having terrible you know trouble with their hair you know because we you know didn't have good hair products for african-american women right after slavery I'm glad you expanded on that there's good thing she didn't have good hair back when we didn't have good hair oh no no you know you know dealing with that misconception sure but so we have you know really great hair products people were using animal fats duck fat goose fat their bear fat which it's not sanitary and it's a very heavy oil that clogs your pores can make you go bald yeah and they were using these really strong lye soaps too you know kind of straighten the hair a little bit yeah and so what you had was really an epidemic of baldness in the african-american community with women uh-huh you know so she you know it's troubled by this to see black women using these products that really were not good for them and she tried to come up with some better products and so she did you know she came up with a bomb called the wonderful hair grower to help women you know sort of cure the baldness that they were dealing with from these products and then she came up with a haircare regimen for black women to take care of their natural hair and she built a company she built a you know hey before telling us about her building the company did are you familiar with her educational background at all because I mean I hear you say she was reared by slaves so you know she she got to about you know what would be middle school today yeah before she dropped out so she did have some schooling but she grew up in a poor community in Illinois where most of the African Americans were either sharecroppers or domestics uh-huh so eventually she had to drop out of school to work to help contribute to the household but even as she was doing that she was still learning about hair developing these private products and then when she got to be about 30 you know she you know she launched a company and you know started marketing these products you know to African Americans so this would have been right around 1901 1902 somewhere there bounced right right so she her coming out was really the World Fair in st. Louis is 1904 1905 yeah you know which is this big thing they you know you know built this huge you know staging area with you know rides and presentations and all this you know sort of stuff is a huge huge spectacle and so she moved to st. Louis actually in anticipation for the fair and you know set up her company there and then she just went around and she you know just talked to you know african-americans introduced them to her products she recruited workers at the World's Fair because they were African Americans coming from all over the country to see the World's Fair and so that was really her coming out and after that she really launched her company as a really really big haircare product company you know one has to ask just just where in the world did the vision come from you know I mean it to me all of these giants these these these rainmakers these earth shakers it's just like it's it's it's difficult to imagine out of the depths of poverty and deprivation and denigration of who these individuals were singularly and as a people how one rise is what it is that one is so blessed to be able to rise like she did especially a woman during that time right right I think one of the things I noticed in all of the characters is just that innate sense of self-confidence yeah that you know superseded you know the you know negative racist ideas that were out there about black people that superseded you know folks only seeing poverty and lack in their immediate surroundings she I write about a little bit in the book how she was discouraged by everyone around her to try to build a hair business and say that dad will never work black hair will never be a big business and but she kept going you know she just had they kept telling Annie Malone no way yet the black folks around her her sister her friends they said hey this isn't gonna work black hair will never be a big thing yeah you know this is a waste of time for you to do this but she's kept she kept going I'll tell you what let's connect this he's just further down here on the list but but during that time it was not beyond some pretty serious competition in the black community because to a certain extent we we know so very much about madam CJ Walker mmm-hmm less about any Malone right they were rivals of sorts lately competitors yes certainly competitors certainly you know certainly competitors that's a great way to put it so madam CJ Walker name it's actually Sarah Breedlove most people know her as madam CJ Walker she worked for Annie Malone that's how she got her start she was a laundress in st. Louis you know working you know its job didn't play a lot of money is a very difficult job and she got a job working for Annie selling her products after about a year she moved to Colorado to sell Annie's products there and you know shortly after that her boyfriend at the time CJ Walker moved down to Colorado with her okay and he said you know what you should sell your own products and so she started selling basically you know for products with the same formulas same sort of branding yeah as Annie Malone's products and launched her product line that well that way now I mean it's you know one of the things that I really tried to suss out in the book that was difficult was to determine how they felt about each other yeah and you know was never an ugly rivalry where you know I don't think Annie was really incredibly mad at her you know they you know we're at the same events you know a lot of times but Annie Malone was the person that actually gave madam CJ Walker her start and her business was actually much much bigger than madam CJ Walker's uh-huh now she died without any children to tell her story right and the documents were not really well preserved and you know you know archived in the right way so most folks don't know about her the way they know about season longer too too early too early Giants of the female persuasion absolutely again man which as we look back now and you know if we can frame this discussion as to where we are here today because we we we talk about our maladies we talk about our issues we talk about the limitations that are put but when folks understand history and what these giants did how they made a way out of absolutely no way then what is our potential to they and I mean again I think that this book black fortunes is so much more than just talking about the stories of these six women it is something that gives a perspective you know and I'll use the trite saying weather where there's a will there's a way mm-hmm because that's what they hate right they had they they had to will to overcome just odds that was so ultimately stacked against right right I mean you know there's so many racist ideas about the limitations of black people you know on the very extreme extreme race some people say we're genetically limited or right you know we're lesser lesser people you know this sort of white supremacist argument you know there's some people who would just say you know what black people were just tragic people you know we're yeah a you know we're just doomed where there's no there's no way out the circumstances are too dire and you know what these figures demonstrated to me is that black people have an incredible potential that's not to minimize the obstacles we have to go through which are you know you know more than you know almost anyone else on this planet you know has had to go through yeah but our potential is bigger you know than the obstacles we have to face I really believe that let's move to Hannah Elias tell us all about mr. Elias so Hannah Elias you know she's a controversial controversial and of course I said mister yeah missile missile I missed another one of the early female giant yes so you know she's a controversial figure so she was born in Philadelphia in 1865 right at the end of the of a civil war to free black people her father was a caterer and she moved to New York now you know how she got to New York is a tale it's probably too long to tell on the show but she moved to New York where she became the mistress of this rich white man yeah he's white millionaire I'll tell you what you just said something probably is too long of a story to tell on the show here we've got some time and least less let's touch on her journey to get the New York so her journey to get to New York starts when her sister got married in Philadelphia and her father was a caterer which at the time that was one of the first businesses that black people got involved with he was a successful entrepreneur they were black middle-class okay and he throws her this you know grand wedding that all of the black people in Philadelphia wanted to come to and is you know beautiful ceremony and I'm sure the food was delicious he was a caterer and you know Hannah she stole a dress to wear to the wedding right which you know it's not a good thing but I mean it's not you know it's not you know a psychopathic thing to do and she was might say that was being resourceful we'll leave it there but you see what's put in a she was putting in a pretty serious prison she was putting in Yaman Sing prison in Philadelphia which is kind of is you know I don't want to say it's a maximum-security prison but it was a really serious prison there were men in there they were murderers in there for stealing a dress yeah and so this brought great shame to her family so her father kicked her out of the house when she got out of prison right and so she just kind of bounced around you know from different men and you know poor houses and she had a baby which she had to give up at one point and then so she ends up at New York actually working in a brothel in New York City and so this group of white men come to the brothel you know wanting to see some colored girls you know wanting to have whatever you know and you know one of them you know is a white millionaire and you know they spend the night together and you know they kind of fall in love and you remember you remember Harlem Nights yes yes she was early sunshine let's keep going that's a good reference daddy ain't coming home as people so they fall in love and he's they they return a hat Hannah Elias and so he just heaps money on her he gives it about $700,000 and she had just this incredible mansion or great office Central Park she had this you know incredible troop of servants from everywhere Senegal Paris Japan you know which were at the time having foreign servants was a you know a luxury incredible status yes yes and so she also invested the money in real estate when you know when she was with him and so what happened is that their affair ended up getting exposed there was another man you know she was very very a very popular popular woman with you know with with the fellas you know another man who was kind of obsessed with her named Cornelius Williams he sought to kill her white lover right and he kills another white guy who looks like him who's the city planner of the New Year of New York City he you know sort of built the Greater New York City area is instrumental in Central Park the subway Andrew Green and so because they looked like they were you know both white men with beards and dressed similarly he kills him and you know that became a scandal and so on kinda gentleman obsessed with her was he white a black he was black he's like he was obsessed with her and you know so he kills the city planner of New York thinking that's her lover yeah and so in sort of the murder trial in the investigation it comes out that she there's this black woman with all this money having this affair with a white millionaire yeah and there's just some massive public outcry crowds come to her house throw bottles at her windows there rocks at her windows and there's this massive public outcry amongst you know specifically white folks in New York for her to be put in jail so she's eventually arrested for extortion because you know there's no way he could have given the money to her willingly right right I'm you know you how you know we folks just were in disbelief that he could love a black woman that much and she's put on trial for extortion you know and I won't you know ruin the ending too much but she you know she eventually gets off because he refuses to testify against her yeah you know and she ended up you know using her money after that trial to try to do some things you know to help black people or maybe she was just vindictive against white people but she was one of the early investors in Harlem yeah and help Jarnell who was really the architect of Harlem turned it from a white neighborhood because it was an all-white neighborhood in the early nineteen teens he helped she in fact gave him money and invested with him and helped him flip the neighborhood over into a black neighborhood you know so she's a complicated character but I mean she she she eventually became a millionaire and was a you know really influential through her role in um you know turning Harlem into the black Mecca it still is today mm-hmm so again the visionary in in spite of what some of those challenges were but there was a socially conscious component that was developed along the way however that was done right that would inspire her to indeed get involved in the development of Harlem and support causes to advance in the elevate black life in that area right right and I think her story is interesting because I think she believed at first that her money could help her escape her blackness yeah cuz she kind of shut herself up in this mansion off of Central Park and never came out mm-hmm and just really you know try to avoid anybody knowing she was black really tried to avoid experiencing being black yeah she hired doctors and surgeons to try to lighten her skin chaser change her facial features she wore wigs of you know straight hair and didn't like to associate with black people very much after she was hauled off to jail put in the jail in New York City they called the tombs yeah right after she spent a couple nights in the tombs and was put on trial that kind of changed her mentality slowly about what it meant to be black and she moved away from sort of the south loathing you know ideology and moved more towards you know wanting to help and wanting to contribute Hannah Elias absolutely fascinating yeah she is yeah let's keep going got another lady Mary Ellen Pleasant yet Mary Ellen pleasure you know she's she's just an incredible incredible you know marvel so she was born free in Philadelphia a lot of these folks trace back to Philadelphia because it was a free place it's probably the freest place you know during the slave period but she was born free in Philadelphia in the 1820s to a Polynesian merchant and a black woman who's originally from Louisiana and you know she was reared there for her first couple years of life and then she was eventually sent off to Nantucket where she was raised by a white family you know so she grew up in Nantucket during the whaling boom so she grew up in a boom town which was formative for her yeah when she reached adulthood she came into a little bit of money she got marrying her husband died and left her some money about 40 50 thousand dollars so when she got to adulthood she finds out about the gold rush another boom another boom town and she already had an idea of how to make it at the boom town because she grew up in one so she becomes a 49er goes out to the gold rush which was unusual a lot of african-americans didn't go and hardly any women went but she was a black woman yeah and she went and you know was able to build a fortune in California are you can you tell us a little bit about her building that fortune and then what she was what she did that sort of hurt some of her times there in California I don't mean to give away you know all your book here but man this is some fascinating stuff while viewers to to appreciate yeah I mean I want the stories out there you know when there's many people that know about him as possible so in California she was like a lot of the folks you know you know you know the levi-strauss is you know the white folks that went out there made a lot of money she didn't go into the hills to mine for gold she said hey there's this market here with the miners let me try to make some money off of them yeah so she did a couple things she became a moneylender you know because the you know miners they always needed money sure you know they no sometimes they would have a lot of money sometimes they were broke so they always needed something and she lent the money at really really high interest rates you know I think one their original hard money Linda's right exactly so that that was one you know really good stream of revenue for her you know she also got involved in you know having laundries you know washing people's clothes having businesses doing that yeah are you know where she employed African Americans provided jobs for them which that was a real luxury back then you know when you used to wash clothes with the washboard and the wash tub so she had a business doing that she got involved in having boarding houses she also invested in silver not gold but silver because silver went up during the gold rush as well mm-hmm you know just had her you know she had her hands and everything she could find that was profitable out there yeah so I don't know if you were gonna say this and not but I'm so anxious to hear this next phase of her life what was it she someone to do extraordinarily well what how do you draw the connection between that kind of wild success at that point if you will and her becoming someone who helped fund the efforts of John Brown so you know she grew up in Nantucket right which we think of as a quaint you know sort of you know lily-white town so to speak but during the antebellum period it was a radical place you had black whalers there a lot of times black folks were recruited to Nantucket because you know we were thought to have this unnatural strength so we could harpoon whales so there was a lot of black Weller's and then tuck in making money and it was free and so there was a you know sort of an oasis of black radical thought and you know one of the first experiences I describe in the book is how Frederick Douglass as a public figure was sort of born in Nantucket he gives this huge speech in Nantucket which was his first major speech ever and that kind of launches his entire career and that's just the type of play nantucket was it was a lot of abolitionists a lot of radical black abolitionists so she was reared in an environment where slavery was detested we're fighting slavery was bandied about and so when she gets to California she resolves to use some of her money that she makes to help black people to backtrack a little bit the other reason she did that is her husband who was also an abolitionist that you know she married him and he died very shortly after they were married but on his deathbed he made her promise to do something to help african-americans so she had this huge motivation yeah to do something to fight slavery in the 1850s and so one of the things she decides is I'm gonna go find John Brown yeah because he was constantly in abolitionists newspapers and she's I'm just gonna find John Brown and I'm gonna give him some money somehow to do something and that leads her to Canada to Chatham Chatham Ontario where there were a lot of free blacks who relocated to that area after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed and you could catch black people and put them back into slavery and so he came there to meet with these radical black folks in Canada yeah she makes it up there to that convention and she meets with John Brown it gives them about forty five thousand dollars to fund his raid on Harpers Ferry you know I wish my audience always is that watching in here we're just kind of all sitting in here cuz I'd say hey let's stop we can't stop we're not gonna stop here on television I was but I would be like stop let's ponder that for a moment let's ponder this was what 18 1858 this is 1858 slavery is still the law of the lane mmm-hmm got this black lady who left the East Coast went out to speculate wasn't became a 49er made of fortune and came back across came back cross kind of went into Canada sought out John Brown and at that time and I don't know what it equates to now 1858 to 20,000 2018 but that $50,000 is probably representative of millions now yeah close to a close to a million dollars okay and she just when I think about the bigness of that it is something that I just see man just looming out there that again this book is a form of inspiration that should be on everybody's desk so you know that's what I think about your book well I appreciate that you know and I you know I just I think Mary Ellen Pleasant is someone who deserves to be honored yeah you know right up there with the rest of our CDs yes John Brown was instrumental in bringing about into slavery in my opinion so you know is a huge thing for her to do yeah let's talk about Robin Reed Church let's talk about mr. Church so I mean he's you know if I had a favorite character in the book or a favorite historical figure in the book it would be Robert research you know he just had such intestinal fortitude you know it was unbelievable so he was the son of a rich white man a steamship owner in his black concubine and so he lived with his mother on a cotton plantation until she died we're so in Arkansas but it was you know it was kind of in the area of bar Arkansas he was bordering Memphis bordering Tennessee so sort of almost the Memphis suburb you know if it's very close so when she dies his father this white steamship owner comes and gets him when he's just a boy and puts him to work you know because he belonged to his father yeah on board his steamship you know it's working on the steamship so the steamship industry back then it was two things it was luxury transportation you know to get up and down the Mississippi you know get from you know Memphis to New Orleans or what-have-you but the primary economic you know component of owning a steamship was it transported cotton up and down the Mississippi so would pick up the pack you know in Tennessee you know this picked in the Mississippi Delta and usually transported down to the Port of New Orleans where it could be then shipped out internationally usually to England you know to fuel their textile industry right so his father was shipping cotton and he was working on this ship so he eventually escaped slavery when he reaches adulthood during the civil war the confederacy actually commandeered his father's ship because when the Confederacy you know basically declared war on America yeah they were short on the equipment yeah you know so a lot of southerners they went to them and said you know we need you know what you have and so they commandeered his father's ship and he was put to work onboard you know working for the Confederate sellers and so that ship is actually involved in a huge battle the Battle of Memphis in which the Confederacy was beaten very badly so in the middle of that battle he kind of jumps off the ship says you know this is hit you know it jumps off the ship into the Mississippi River yeah this battle occurred just outside Memphis it's called the Battle of Memphis swims swim downriver and kind of washes up on the shore of Memphis and builds a life there as a businessman and it was you know he really had to fight to make it there it used to soup had a really interesting life why is he your favorite so I I think you know he would the strength that he displayed the fearlessness he displayed resonates with me so Robert research after he you know kind of arrives on Memphis he you know he starts a business he starts a pool hall in about 1865 1866 and this was just a place for black people to hang out loudly the southern towns after the Civil War were occupied by the Union Army mostly by black soldiers who were there to keep the peace just basically making sure the confederate veterans that were there didn't try anything didn't try to re-enslave the black folks or attack them and so he said you know these folks need a place to hang out have a good time I'm gonna make a pool hall and a bar and a bar room basically a nightclub for them and that was one of the most prominent black businesses in Memphis in 1866 a very bad race riot broke out in Memphis you know my opinion one of the worst race riots in history yeah we're basically these white police officers who were confederate veterans most of them you know got into a fight with some black Union soldiers you know and basically decided to go on a rampage is basically killing African Americans violating women you know attacked a pregnant woman and so they decided Robert Reed Church as the most prominent black business owner in Memphis he's got to die right and so everybody knew this everybody knew they were coming for him the stateís raged riot raged on for two days his wife begged him to stay in the house he'd want to stay in the house he went to his business and basically waited for them to arrive and so the mob did eventually arrive in his at his business they robbed him they looted him they shot him in the head he said his business on fire and then left him for dead he actually survived that night you know and after after the race riots incident he rebuilt bigger you know and bought more real estate bought more property built more businesses and he always carried a pistol on his hip and you know he wasn't scared to use it you know and so he not only fought back through business but he actually fought back there are several instances where he discharged his weapon you know yeah in protection yeah oh yeah of him in his own mm-hmm super hero man yeah super hero I think so too I understand I understand why you called me state it's very difficult I mean this is this when you go through this book and you read the different stories and the baton and sort of the backstory of the stories it was very difficult to say which one was most inspirational which one was was most powerful which once again succeeded against the greatest of arts it just I just repeat what an incredible example it is for the day's time and I really want to kind of talk to you once we get through this about lessons you learn overall in research and how they applied to today before we get there let's move on down to Jeremiah Hamilton so Jeremiah Hamilton he makes a brief cameo in the book so he was you know basically the only black financial broker in New York during the slavery period and he was just really a really aggressive trader you know and he you know he was he was he was bombastic he was you know he was a showy person and so he lived in a brownstone really nice brownstone in downtown New York and was married to a white woman who was much much younger than him you know he's just an expensive wool suits he wore a wig of flowing black hair and you know he did battle with some of the great white financial Titans of the air and cleaning the Vanderbilts and so he was really really hated and so very similar to Bob church's story when things went sideways racially yeah they came after him in his case it was a little early earlier it was during the Civil War during the Civil War draft riots in New York when basically you know the Lincoln administration said we're going to have to draft some people for the Union Army to win this war and basically you know a lot of white recent immigrants who didn't feel they had a you know any skin in the game in the battle you know for you know to eliminate slavery got really upset and they started rioting and killing and crucifying black people so Jeremiah Hamilton like Bob Church is one of the more well-known African Americans to his business prowess and you know they marched on his house to lynch him they said they were gonna limp Lynch him by the lamppost outside his house yeah now he actually heard them coming because you know they weren't the brightest lynch mob in the world they were chanting and chanting his house number as they marched down the street to come get him and so he fled you know he kind of jumped his fence and ran away and you know they looted his house they held his wife hostage for a little bit but ultimately nobody was hurt you know but he you know was a really cunning investor a really cunning traitor and you know like some of the other folks in this book you know he had to you know fend for his life because of how successful he was mm-hmm Oh w girlie so we all know black Wall Street yes and you know you bet you known as black Wall Street but it was actually called Greenwood and as part of Tulsa and so he built black Wall Street or Greenwood in in Tulsa right about at the turn of the century when oil was discovered in Tulsa and it was a boomtown like San Francisco or Nantucket suddenly there was this tremendous need for jobs for for domestics you know for all sorts of workers and so you know let me ask them because when you mentioned and it's it's rightly so he was given so much credit for the building of black Wall Street which was there in Tulsa are you familiar with his background prior to going to Tulsa yeah yes so I so he was from he's from he was actually from Arkansas he was the son of slaves I think he was born a year after slavery ended and his family they were farmers you know so he sort of grew up on a farm again a very ambitious guy and so he was kind of always looking for a way you know to make something of himself he the first thing he really did was he became a teacher uh you know which is a really good profession and then he actually worked for the Postal Service which you know was one of the few government jobs African Americans could get porters know right after slavery you know so he's always looking for opportunity and then you know the you know he the United States government announced that they were gonna open up Oklahoma for settlement which previously had been where you know you know the majority of Native American population was living and he goes there in 1889 get supply to land in that land rush and you know it's just sort of makes a life there but he didn't do anything spectacular and then when there's a second land rush in 1893 no sorry sorry part of me when you know the oil is found rather he sees another opportunity and so he moves to Tulsa and you know he basically started developing the north side of Tulsa which was completely undeveloped at that time and he develops it specifically for black folks and the black folks that were coming there yeah to work the jobs that were you know you know you know starting to appear because of the because of the oil boom mm-hmm okay so so that's a good explanation of of him what he did before getting there and start so do me a favor because inevitably inevitably when you talk about an OWI early you have to become maybe more familiar than most with the with the with the terrorizing of Tulsa and black Wall Street and it is we hear about that that's famous that's a famous incident but there was so much of that prevalent throughout the country right so if you don't mind you know kind of for those who might not be so familiar tell us about black Wall Street and its destruction so the black Wall Street was eventually destroyed again by a race mob you know so it's sort of developing a theme of what happens to some of these black folks with money but it was tragic because it was they call it the promised land it was supposed to be a refuge from that it was envisioned by owd Gurley and the other you know folks that he built the the the community with as a place that blacks could come again come come and get away from southern racism and it was this independent black town they had their own shops own doctors on schools own lawyers they all you know either own their own property or rented from a black landlord I was just really powerful in these black folks also they were pretty heavily armed because it was still the wild wild west yeah and they were you know militant they really did not stomach a lot of racism because you know they had were escaping from it and so for a time it was just this magical place that African Americans could come live in their own community be safe and make a good living yeah and you know eventually you know history sort of caught up with them you know so in 1921 there was an incident where a black young man black boy from Tulsa from black Wall Street was accused of groping a young white woman and it's still not clear whether that actually really happened or not and you know the incident just escalates he's arrested and put in jail there's just basically a standoff between armed black people from Tulsa at the jailhouse and armed white folks from Tulsa at the at the jailhouse and you know it eventually escalates into violence and this white mom that was there at the jailhouse they get in their cars and they basically ride into black Wall Street just kill a lot of people wound dozens of people and basically bomb it and burn it to the ground okay you say bomb and I want to want to ask you you know which side of the what side of the fence you come down on as to looking at it and studying it clearly there is there are some who say the government was involved in terms of some of the bombs they weren't just bombs that was thrown by individuals organized effort from the government how do you where do you come out on that that's a difficult question I mean the government is certainly culpable you know this group of white men that participated they had tried to raid the national armory before that so the government certainly knew something was going on and the government one thing that we know is that they were there arresting black folks in Tulsa yeah supposedly to keep them safe you know so they were arresting them and moving them somewhere else but you know I don't know why you arrest people that are victims of terror I have no doubt that you know that you know there was some wrongdoing it happened there I I you know I I don't have the strong evidence of it but my feeling is that there there definitely was at very least severe negligence there may have been a conspiracy you know but it's it's hard to say yeah you cannot go through this kind of research to undertake this kind of project find out what you've found out spend time you know examining these heroes and she rose and it not change you in my estimation they'll be very difficult to do let's talk about how this book has changed you and what impact it had on has had on you well I mean I think obviously you know I came away from the book you know with even deeper respect you know for our ancestors and everything they went through and everything they built you know I think more acutely I you know my sense of wealth and how wealth is built specifically for African Americans was enlightened by by this project seeing actually how folks built it how they went against the trends and you know how they act you know arrange their lives and you know what they did with the wealth you know so I just think it really changed me in terms of how I think about money and power more so than anything else so again from what you have gleaned from all of this work what becomes your message to your contemporaries the folks that are older than you and the people that are that are younger than you I'm curious well so I mean this book is an argument for hope you know the you know they endured a lot you know you know some of them most of them you know ended up losing a lot of their money you know because of the racism that they faced but I think sometimes we can look at all the racism that goes on still today in America and we can become hopeless yeah we can start to believe that you know racism is a force of gravity that just cannot ever be overcome and it's very very serious but I want people to take away from it that it can't limit us completely you know and see the strength you know that our ancestors have that our ancestors developed and realize that you know we can we you know we're not doomed you know we're not in a nihilistic situation we need to fight you know continually against racism and against oppression but you know I think this book and everything african-americans have overcome shows that you know I think we can win do you see any examples to date obviously you know 150 hundred and sixty-eight years later do you see examples today that remind you of those that you come to know through this project so I mean certainly you know black elite today is involved in a lot of philanthropy and a lot of the philanthropy is you know directed towards African Americans you know I went to Morehouse you know I have friends that were Oprah scholars at Morehouse she's sponsored you know students at Morehouse every year which was something that Annie Malone did she used to sponsor one student in every historically black college in America mmm you know so that you know and Oprah is obviously very charitable very giving I look at Magic Johnson in the way that he went into the african-american community and brought businesses that's basically what Bob Church ended up doing in Memphis you know you know creating bill streets which is still you know a black you know black you know important site for black America today you know so I am reminded you know through the philanthropy we were just talking about Robert Smith who gave a bunch of money to Cornell the sponsor scholarships around you speak of Robert Smith who now according to Forbes is the richest african-american in the country yes in the US hedge fund manager richest black man you know in the United States just made a big gift to Cornell for scholarships for african-americans and women who want to go into stem so I mean I I do see the philanthropy in you but do I see anything on this level if I had to be honest not at this point and you know that's not you know it meant to be a harsh critique it's just these folks basically redistributed their entire net worth and pretty much all of their power you know to the Africa to the African American community right after slavery to help us get established so I don't think we're seeing anything on this magnitude I mean you can argue whether or not that's needed or not but the there's nobody white who I think you know is really you know giving on this level either to be clear about that they gave so much you know they gave almost everything you know to help black folks get established after slavery so you you know you when you complete a masterpiece like this something that that that is as special as this book is what's next so I mean I I'm my what I'm trying to do is I really want to shine light you know on the African American story especially immediately after slavery and how we built everything that we have you know so the next book is along the lines of this one I'm not allowed to talk about it but the characters in the next book are in this book I could say that was so I'm working on the second book fortunate enough Stephanie Elaine the executive producer of dear white people is interning the book to a television show and I'm involved in that so I'm very happy about that and you know still focused on you know trying to spread the word about about this book lastly you say you want to shine the light on slavery and in that time period we've actually have one minute left why well because I think the answer is to you know the the problems of the future may lie in the past one of the things this book talks about is how the black economy was basically built by these people in this book in their current contemporaries nobody really gave us anything I mean there were land-grant universities and some people you know were you know given jobs by the government or maybe a bit of land but for the most part black African Americans had to build everything we had ourselves we had to build our own communities we had to build our own businesses our movements for civil rights and equal rights we had to fund those and so I want us to take pride in the fact that not only did we do we have these things not only did we have we fought for civil rights but we were also the economic engine driving all of that you know I feel especially blessed and hopefully our audience feels the same way to be very fortunate to have a guy who did black fortunes sit here and talk to us thanking me thank you rocky was really an honor thank you so much thank you that wraps us for this evening for more information on this program or any other program produced by w hu t go to WH UT org goodbye and God bless and good fortune [Music] [Music] this program was produced by WH you see Howard University television and made possible by contributions and viewers like you thank you [Music]

Channel: RockNewmanShow

Views: 16,922

Rating: 4.92278 out of 5

Keywords: Shomari Wills, Rock Newman, Robert Reed Church, Annie Malone, John Drew, Madam C.J. Walker, Mary Ellen Pleasant, John Brown, O.W. Gurley, Hannah Elias, Annie Turnbo Malone, Black Fortunes

Id: ib4bhrf6zT8

Length: 56min 46sec (3406 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 20 2018